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A new road tunnel link is to be built in the Faeroe Islands. The Sandoy Tunnel will be driven by the Swedish contractor NCC. The firm has been working on another tunnel project in the Faeroe Islands. This new tunnel is expected to cost €114.8 million to drive.

A new toll bridge is being planned in Chile to span the River Biobío. Construction of the new bridge has been recommended by Chile’s Environmental Evaluation Service (SEA), following its completion of a study into the project. The project will cost close to US$177.5 million and provide a new connection between Hualpén and San Pedro de la Paz. The new bridge will be the fourth spanning the River Biobío and is needed due to heavy congestion on the main Route 160 crossing. Building the new bridge will cut jour

Russia’s road company, Avtodor, reports that the project to build the fourth section of Moscow’s Central Ring Road (CRR) should be completed in February 2019. The Italian firm Anas has retained its interest in the project, which is costing a total of around US$1.28 billion.

Construction for a new Norwegian road link is now being restarted, with approval having been given for the project. Work on the Nordøyvegen road project commenced in 2017 but was halted over concerns at its cost. The work came with an initial pricetag of close to €588 million. However revisions to the plans have resulted in a lower pricetag of €535.3 million, which has now been accepted by the local authority in Møre og Romsdal.

Construction work on a new toll road connection is due to commence in Indonesia in mid-2019. The 120km road connecting Solo, Yogyakarta and Kulonprogo will be built by the Adhi Karya (ADHI) consortium. The project is costing an estimated US$1.25 billion and should take 36 months to complete. One of the most complex sections of the project will be for the 20km stretch of elevated highway. The new toll road will also provide a connection to the new Yogyakarta International Airport.

The Vietnamese Government is prioritising construction of the country’s North-South expressway project. Contractors are already being selected for the 11 sub-projects for the expressway, which is expected to come with a final pricetag of US$5.09 billion. The 2,100km route is being built in three separate phases and links 32 of Vietnams cities and provinces. The first 650km section will be complete by 2020. The other sections should be ready for traffic by 2025.

The highway of the future will not be a physical asset created and maintained by the construction industry … it will increasingly be seen as part of an emerging global services sector. “Every day we hear about Mobility as a Service (MaaS), but what about Roads as a Service?” says Christophe Nicodème, general director of the European Union Road Federation (ERF). “The role of the road is changing. We need to think much more carefully about planning (highway) infrastructure in terms of people’s needs. We must

The tender process is underway in Morocco for the North-East bypass for Agadir. The project is needed to reduce the chronic congestion that occurs on the existing routes around the city during peak periods at present. Traffic flow on the city’s outer ring road can become particularly sluggish during rush hour periods. The new bypass will help the flow of both commuter traffic and heavy vehicles between the port of Agadir to Agadir Al-Massira Airport, as well as for roads on the northern side of the city. It

A project is being put forward for development work to the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEx) in the Philippines. The expressway will be extended to San Juan, with the work being carried out by San Miguel Holdings. The project is worth an estimated US$441.7 million. The new stretch will feature two lanes in either direction and will run from Rosario to San Juan.

Interest is strong in Paraguay’s Costanera Sur project. So far six bids have been made to the country’s Ministry of Public Works and Communications (MOPC). The highway will connect Asuncion with Lambare and the project is expected to cost in the order of US$160 million to build. The work is due to commence in September 2019, taking around 30 months to complete. Contractors from Angola, Brazil and Spain are amongst those making bids, in partnership with local construction companies.

Interest is strong in the project to build the Yangon Elevated Expressway Project in Myanmar. In all 12 firms applied during the tender process, with 10 companies having subsequently been shortlisted by Myanmar’s Construction Ministry. The project aims to reduce Yangon’s chronic traffic congestion issues. The shortlisted firms include companies from China, France, Japan, South Korea and Thailand, with some working together in consortia. The project is being managed jointly by the Construction Ministry and t

A funding arrangement has been agreed between Ghana and China to pay for road construction works. The package is for a US$646.6 million deferred payment deal. It has been set up with Sinohydro to cover an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract. This will be for upgrade and improvement work for roads and interchanges. The package is the first in a series worth up to $2 billion that will pay for various major infrastructure projects in Ghana. One of the projects will include building a road

Progress appears to be slow on the El Sillar road project in Bolivia.

Widening work for Poland’s A2 highway will be carried out between the Lodz Polnoc Junction and Konotopa Junction. The 88km highway stretch will benefit from the addition of an extra lane in either direction. Between Polnoc and Pruszkow this will result in a third lane being added in either direction. Between Pruszkow and Konotopa meanwhile this will result in a fourth lane being added in either direction. The construction work will take until 2021 to complete and will cost around €139.22 million. The Polish

A loan package from the World Bank will help pay for transport infrastructure upgrades in Bangladesh.

A series of major highway projects are now moving ahead in Indonesia. One of the projects is for part of the Trans-Java Toll Road. Work is now starting to build the route and this new 759km toll road will connect Surabaya and Jakarta. Construction is already underway on building the Bogor-Ciawi-Sukabumi Toll Road or Bocimi linking West Java's Ciawi with Cigombong.

Much of the necessary funding has now been secured for construction of the first section of Chile’s Americo Vespucio Oriente (AVO 1) highway. A loan package worth US$832 million is being provided jointly by a number of funding bodies. These are; Banco Estado, Bci and Banco de Chile. In all the project is expected to cost $984 million. The construction work is being carried out by a consortium comprising Sacyr and Aleatica (formely OHL Concesiones).

Financing is being sought in Australia for the a major tunnel project in New South Wales. The project is for the Western Harbour Tunnel, which is intended to run underneath Sydney Harbour. The route for the proposed tunnel would rund from the Rozelle interchange to the Warringah Freeway. The tunnel project forms part of a wider plan to build new road links in Sydney, in a bid to help reduce the city’s traffic problem. The new tunnel would lower journey times for drivers by cutting congestion on the famous S

Greek construction company Intrakat likes a challenge. It recently took on two closely scheduled airport projects – but it had only a single asphalt plant. Intrakat used the transport-optimised Ammann ABT QuickBatch Asphalt-Mixing Plant to produce mix at the airport on the island of Mykonos airport. Afterwards, the plant was packed and ferried to Kos. The upgraded runways at Mykonos and Kos are two of the 14 Greek airports being rehabilitated within seven months. Intrakat is handling mix production at

Analysts predict strong growth in road building up to 2020 as public finances improve. Graham Anderson reports from Helsinki European civil engineering markets – including road building and maintenance - are predicted to grow strongly between now and 2020 thanks to the increasing strength of EU members states’ national economies. The increasingly optimistic forecasts are contained in the latest construction industry research from construction market analyst Euroconstruct, based in the Finnish capital Hel